


Mediocre

by ashleybenlove



Category: Tarzan (1999)
Genre: 19th Century, Community: disney_kink, Gen, Mostly historically accurate, women in the 19th Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 21:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14702349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashleybenlove/pseuds/ashleybenlove
Summary: Jane Porter never goes to Africa to study gorillas.





	Mediocre

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this anonymously in April 2012 on the Disney Kink Meme for the prompt: "I'd like to see something with any Disney movie dealing with mediocrity. There's usually one event that incites the plot in most of the movies, and that would be removed." The prompter listed a couple of suggestions as well and one of them, "Maybe Jane's father feels a trip to the wild would be too dangerous for his daughter, and she spends most of her life inside a library." is what I chose to do with this fic.

They had talked for months in 1858 about going to Africa to study the gorilla in their natural habitat, but in the end, Professor Porter decided that they would not be going to the jungles of Africa. It was too dangerous, he had said. Especially for a sixteen year old! They might be injured or become ill and would die before getting to a hospital. She would have liked to have left England and gone off to the African continent to study animals. London was nice: it did have the Zoological Gardens and the National History Museum, but it was not the same. Paul du Chaillu, even if he was a great anthropologist, only brought back dead gorillas. Jane would have liked to study a real life gorilla in its actual habitat. 

At least she was allowed to study and read and gain knowledge. Her father did not say no to that. In fact, he completely supported her on that particular bit. He was a Professor, and did not believe in denying his own daughter education, at least in terms of academia. And she read a lot. Like, as much as she could. By the time of her thirtieth birthday in 1872, she had read all of Darwin’s bibliography. Lucky guy getting to go on the _HMS Beagle_ all those years ago. At least he contributed to the knowledge base and that was important, which she would remind herself whenever she felt those pangs of sadness that here she was in a London library reading and taking classes at University and being a British lady and not in Africa learning from her own experience, but rather learning from somebody else’s experiences. 

What an average life. At least Jane had her books.


End file.
